I hadn't been able to afford a new Mac for over ten years, so when my girlfriend bought an iBook G4 last year I was quite excited. The excitement quickly became disappointment when I inserted a CD of photos which I had burnt on my PC. It wouldn't recognize the CD, and I couldn't eject it, even after rebooting. So with the CD still stuck in the machine, I tried using the help viewer to see what could be done. After clicking around a bit, I realized it was taking me to irrelevant pages (even worse than Windows help!). Then without warning the help viewer crashed. Not a great start.

Sometimes when the iBook is charging while on standby, the not-exactly-quiet fan will start up (it especially likes to do this when we're asleep in the same room). Also, the unit is very noisy when watching VCDs.

There are a number of OS-related niggles which I will put down to personal taste, but I find it hard to see why OSX is so universally liked. Sure, it's got pretty slick visuals, but for me that's just sugar-coating, and it's not really customizable.

I've used quite a few OSs in the past, half of which most people here would never have heard of. I was a Mac fan/windoze hater for many years, but now I'm just left shaking my head...

As I've said before, I was for a short time marketing manager for Apple/TR. There's VERY SPECIAL care taken that no direct comparison with PCs are made. I can only point out my subjective feelings on performance. The G4 (which was the best CPU I saw at the time) is a mediocre performer in most jobs. A P3/P4/Athlon will easily trash it. (I did not specify a specific processor speed because they're not exactly comparable - take is as a contemporary CPU) However, it does shine on vector mathematics. The interesting point is vector mathematics is mostly used in cases where the CPU is heavily loaded so you could say it packs a punch where it counts. So if you load up a software that's been specially optimized for different types of processors (like Photoshop), you'll get better performance in Mac. however, the difference is near negligable and Apple takes special care that this difference is exaggerated.

Overall, my view on macs is the i- series is generally poorly designed, whereas the power- series are generally excellent computers. Keep in mind that apple designs are usually done with a specific user profile in mind. They're not generalists. If you do a general comparison, they'll fail. If you do a focused study, they shine.

The G4 Cube suffered from a lack of focus resulting in some design flaws. I personally think the minimac sufferes from the same.

MacOS X - now that's a beut. Unfortunately all that eyecandy sucks up CPU power (and I'm old-school console guy ) - but then so does XP themes and they're never as beautiful As for the backbone, well, it's *nix, and a good one. Sorry M$.

If you get into how Apple does business,... well, there's a reason I quit after 4 months on the job. And I think the market is a better judge of business practices than me.

Sorry for hijacking an already hijacked thread

btw, I sure hope none of you are imagining that MacOS X does NOT run on a PC? That Jobs is betting the entire company on the good graces of Motorola & IBM?

HWgeek wrote:Cost - Before people start saying Mac's are 2x - 3x more expensive, do the research... its patently NOT true anymore. Several articles have compared PC to MAC (G5 machines to Dell as one that I read) some cases, the mac was ~$100 more expensive , some cases the PC was more expensive. $100 - $200 is about 10% difference. Thats very good since overall mac's are sturdier built than most PC's. Remember, comparing an Apple to a no-name brand home built PC is not equal.. Its similar to comparing a Dell or Compaq etc to a no-name brand, its not the same even if they run the same OS.

Indeed you should compare Apple products to products from other "big brand names". Then you see that the target audience of SPCR will most likely not buy an Apple, for the same reasons they won't buy a Dell or a Compaq (or most laptops). In stock form they are too loud and tweaking them is made difficult because part of the system is made of proprietary parts. On top of that you pay a bonus because it is a "brand".

I find it funny too see that there are Apple evangelisers that take the effort to register at SPCR, just to defend "their" new Mac from attacks that are not even made in his thread. Even without taking the effort to understand that this forum is about silencing computers.

If you look through the thread for the reactions of people who are registered longer than a few weeks, you could notice that this new Mac has been received even more positive than the anouncement of the Antec P180 case, while its only claim to quietness is the fact that "Steve Jobs said so". So what are you complaining about?

Might it be that the average Apple evangeliser is less intelligent than the average PC silencer

ActionAttackJohn wrote:It's worth noting that the Radeon 9200 doesn't fully support all of Tiger's new features. Perhaps a new video card can ship around the same time.

Speaking about this, I am pretty sure Apple stated somewhere on their web site that CoreImage (the Tiger graphics engine) would require a 64 Mb graphics card for best performance... but I can't find this any more. Interesting.

By the way, Quartz Extreme (the equivalent for Jaguar/Panther) was supposed to require 32 Mb, but works with 16.

I don't think it would be a very good for Apple if the Mac Mini doesn't support CoreImage, so let's see what happens.
I would certainly wait for this to be clarified before buying a Mac Mini, (and also wait a month to see if no major design flaw is discovered), to reply to ai's question earlier.

Uhh, you mean the flame button? (by coincidence I actually have been wondering how to override some of the images here)

Pjotor wrote:In Sweden there is the saying, "You can't compare apples to pears" (means you can't compare things which are fundamentally different), which I think fits very well here.

Well then you swedes are very strict about that. Those are hardly any different. In english the line is only drawn at comparing apples to oranges. I guess you would you would disapprove of my drinking tea with arange

jiclark wrote:

Actually, the "we don't get viruses" part pisses me off...

Why, because it's true? ;-}

I never got viruses. Even when I wasn't using any AV prgrams. Even when I was just using windows.

jiclark wrote:C'mon you guys, would it kill you to admit that this thing is simply amazing?

Why? It's just a glorified laptop without a screen, which we don't even know much about yet. A friend of mine got a PC like that in hong kong a long time ago(it was a pentium 1). If I wanted a computer that is easy to move around, I'd modularize my PSU and get a shuttle case.

jiclark wrote:wouldn't it be nice if Apple actually gained enough market share to make Gates et al have work a little harder on their end?

Since when is apple so market friendly? Apple's about trusting the designers to make everything work well. I'm sure bill would absolutely love the bussiness model of standardization instead of modularzition, that's why they made the xbox. Appledroids(we don't even have a standard name for them, yet they think we're so against them) need to realize that there are other alterniteves besides them (like linux, BeOS and so on) instead of fixating on windows and gloating over obscure benchmarks comparing G-whatevers to intel chips.

I never got viruses. Even when I wasn't using any AV prgrams. Even when I was just using windows.

And how does your claim relate to reality these days?

If I wanted a computer that is easy to move around, I'd modularize my PSU and get a shuttle case.

Man, once a geek, forever a geek, eh? ;-}

Appledroids(we don't even have a standard name for them, yet they think we're so against them) need to realize that there are other alterniteves besides them (like linux, BeOS and so on) instead of fixating on windows and gloating over obscure benchmarks comparing G-whatevers to intel chips.

I'm always surprised how blind all of us are to our biases and prejudices.[/b]

Anyway... One of these (with tiger and hopefully updated graphics) for day to day browsing/mail/text, shut down my PC for everything but gaming, buy a silent cheap 80 gig HD for that, put current hd's in FreeBSD server in coat cabinet along with music collection & Samba. A KVM sqitch, and I'd be set.

Like someone posted a few days ago, I'm tired of the amount of work it takes to run XP... reboots, reinstalls, running 5 different pieces of software to minimize virus and spyware infections, it just keeps going.

I'd love to just use a sytem that looks fantastic, requires no unnecessary work on my part to run optimally, and just generally makes me feel good every time I use it.

And iMac mini or not, I'd pay extra for a computer that doesn't waste my time...

Simply can't wait to get a dB reading on it. That will, after all, be the deciding factor...

burcakb wrote:Keep in mind that apple designs are usually done with a specific user profile in mind. They're not generalists. If you do a general comparison, they'll fail. If you do a focused study, they shine.

Now, if only they would focus on SPCR users ...

burcakb wrote:
If you get into how Apple does business,... well, there's a reason I quit after 4 months on the job. And I think the market is a better judge of business practices than me.

Is it because you're a (tech) guy which went to marketing ? I don't have the impression that Apple is more (or less) dishonest than his competition (cf. for example the "Get the facts" campaign from MS). I guess nobody here believes any marketing/PR speak.

Which brings me back to the original topic : to actucally check the noise, I'll probably be able to buy 1 or more of those. But shipping date is 29.01 for Switzerland ...

burcakb wrote:btw, I sure hope none of you are imagining that MacOS X does NOT run on a PC?

HWgeek wrote:Remember, comparing an Apple to a no-name brand home built PC is not equal.. Its similar to comparing a Dell or Compaq etc to a no-name brand, its not the same even if they run the same OS.

Indeed you should compare Apple products to products from other "big brand names". Then you see that the target audience of SPCR will most likely not buy an Apple, for the same reasons they won't buy a Dell or a Compaq (or most laptops). In stock form they are too loud and tweaking them is made difficult because part of the system is made of proprietary parts. On top of that you pay a bonus because it is a "brand".

Sorry, but that's plain prejudice : the Dell or Compaq logo isn't actually making more noise by itself. There are some quiet stock Dell. Sure it may be very difficult or impossible to silence them.

Last edited by dago on Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Glad this little guy has garnered such praise from everyone here. Previous I was using my Power Mac G4 at home but it was really loud so I moved it to work and brought back my 450 MHz Cube. Other then the very loud GeForce 3 fan I've made it a point to purchase only quiet Macs from then on and one day build a quiet yet powerful game PC. I've had previous custom build PC but haven't made any since moving to Mac back in 2000.

Enough about me though.

I'm awaiting some developer documentation on this computer, need more specs, more pics. What about that Japanese Mac user who always takes these things apart. Some guy with the black iMac G4 and the first to take apart an iMac G5 completely.

This would be a great replacement for my aging Cube, and it will be the least expensive Mac that I can plug-in to my 20" Cinema Display. Still too early to know anything concrete.

Buying one of these and installing a 7200 RPM 2.5 drive (noise?) and a 1 GB stick of RAM would make this one tiny little power house.

Re: Tiger Support and Core Image
The Mac mini will work in Tiger, but not support Core Image. Basically the Radeon 9200 lacks certain shader functions that are required to take advantage of it. For instance when you activate Dashboard and create a calculator for instance it creates a ripple on the screen like water. Core Image calculates it. Without it either the calculation will be performed by the CPU or they won't be there. Tiger will still run and function the same but real-time effects will either take longer (thus not real time) or won't be there.

It in the same vain as Exposé without Quartz Extreme (QE) , although that is an extreme situation. Without a QE-compliant GPU Exposé still functions but the transitions aren't there. On an iBook G3 you barely see the windows move but it still works.

Anywho I can see Apple selling a ton of these but not too many now. They can't manage to handle supply-demand worth a crap these past few years. After 12 hours our order on the 1.4 GHz mini went from Jan 22 to Feb 11.

dago wrote:Sorry, but that's plain prejudice : the Dell or Compaq logo isn't actually making more noise by itself. There are some quiet stock Dell. Sure it may be very difficult or impossible to silence them.

No, that is not prejudice, it is 15 years of experience. Have you ever seen a Dell, Compaq or other "big brand" computer that came standard with a Seagate Barracuda IV or Samsung Spinpoint? That's a big hurdle isn't it. You buy a brand spanking new PC and the first thing you have to do is throw the HD away and buy another one. And don't get me started about "little details" that are not standard in those machines: Dell power and fan connectors; Compaq PC's that don't work with standard memory; HP Vectra keyboards that don't work on other systems. This is not as bad anymore as a few years back, but it is still not completely gone.

For all those people out there who think the Dells at their workplace are not too loud: It has been mentioned numerous times on SPCR that the ambient noise in an office is a lot louder than at home in the evening. As an IT professional I often work at odd hours when hardly anybody else is in the building. When you walk through a large office on a saturday morning turning off 20 Compaq, HP and Dell PC's one by one, you learn what racket they make.

Oh, in my original statement I never meant to imply that PC's made by some nobrand system integrator are any better noise wise than the big brand ones. That is why anybody who asks this forum for a complete system that is quiet is sent to specialists like ARM. The original statement meant to point out that most SPCR regulars buy parts to self assemble a system, because that is the best guarantee to get an optimal result. When we can hear this new Apple (when it becomes availlable), it has to compete with these systems. Not with an of the shelf Dell or Compaq.

IonYz wrote:Re: Tiger Support and Core Image
The Mac mini will work in Tiger, but not support Core Image. Basically the Radeon 9200 lacks certain shader functions that are required to take advantage of it.

This probably means we get a Mac Mini equipped with another graphics card by the time Tiger is released, doesn't it?
I think I'll wait.

I'm an industrial engineer by graduation but my professional life has been built on marketing/strategic management.

If we lay aside marketingbashing, a marketing guy's (I mean somebody doing actual market management, segmentation, product line management, etc, not someone solely on "communication") main responsibility is to match the product with the demand and communicate it effectively. And - I know this is hard to believe - the best way to do that is to communicate FACTS & TRUTH - just be selective on WHAT fact & truth you communicate. Then there comes the slight "stretching" bit. In my 12 years in business, never did I feel I was "stretching" truth into blatant "misleading" (read NOT lying but misinforming) as I did while working for Apple. Worldwide Apple is "slightly better" in telling the truth, Turkish office was stuck with the motto "think different" and actually believed that thinking different did mean market forces & rules of economics did not apply!!!

Apple is mainly a design & marketing company. Production savvy has never been its main strength. And when you're as small as you are and buying your main component from two companies one of whom is equally bad in production and the other hoards the best CPUs for his own systems, production schedules are bound to slip.

Now don't get me wrong. Apple has great products. But most of them are aimed at specific users. Apple marketing periodically suffers from a split desire to go "mainstream" and "professional-customer-focused"". Unfortunately I believe the minimac is again a product of this split. The PowerBook like is VERY good - has been all the time. G4 towers are pretty good at what they do. G4 Cube was a visual design wonder but a technical design nightmare (I love what one member here did, turning it into a PC. Wish I had the skills to do one for myself). But that leaves you with two different types of customers - the power user professionals with whom you can reason and easily sell your Apple to, even if it's inferior in certain respects to a PC, and the Mac zealots that drive you absolutely crazy!

OK, back to original subject. It's been quite a few years but IIRC, the G4 wasn't exactly a cool running processor and had thermal safety built in - like the Presscots. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. If that's correct, I'll bet anything that the CPU will go into throttling as soon as somebody fires up Photoshop and starts doing filters on huge print files. And don't anybody tell me that's not the target market. I've had enough graphics professionals bash me for the G4 Cube.

My favourite thing about mac-heads is that they don't realise almost every style of PC apple releases has already been done in the IBM-PC market, usually years before.

Now for some good humored jabs to the ribs ot Apple.Funny - How the brainwashed lemmings see it.Funnier - For the haters.

Also as far as it not supporting Core Image, its apparently intentional. This is their bargan basement PC that was released to finally take care of the sub $500 segment. Just like economy PC's in the IBM-PC realm, the low end systems don't take advantage of all the latest hardware or software by design.

bigred wrote:Also as far as it not supporting Core Image, its apparently intentional. This is their bargan basement PC that was released to finally take care of the sub $500 segment. Just like economy PC's in the IBM-PC realm, the low end systems don't take advantage of all the latest hardware or software by design.

Yeah. Same goes for the current eMac and iBook. I'm expecting Tiger to be released at WWDC 2005 (June/July) before then all lines may be updated GPU wise but maybe not. Funny links BTW

Re: Supply Problems
Supply problems intentional? I doubt it, as they would lose professional customers. For every x amount (some large number) of iPod mini purchaser waiting for their little "toy" there are professional people spending upwards of $6000 on a system that gets delayed over and over and over and over. I've heard people waiting over 3 months. Thats stupid and wrong, sorry.

burcakb wrote:OK, back to original subject. It's been quite a few years but IIRC, the G4 wasn't exactly a cool running processor and had thermal safety built in - like the Presscots. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. If that's correct, I'll bet anything that the CPU will go into throttling as soon as somebody fires up Photoshop and starts doing filters on huge print files. And don't anybody tell me that's not the target market. I've had enough graphics professionals bash me for the G4 Cube.

The G4 is an embedded processor (check Freescale's site), and while they do run warm mentioning Prescott in the same sentence is comical Really it depends on what model of G4 this is. The 7447 (used in PowerBooks) has no L3, and advanced throttling while the 7457 offer L3 but doesn't have the throttling technology.

The G4 itself is a very tiny chip, in fact it looks like a GPU chip so that may cause more cooling issues. Or the fact that Apple has been overclocking them for years. They are even doing this with the G5 IMHO with their 2.5 GHz models. Odd the Xserve rack-mount uses 2.3 GHz chips. Full fan load, liquid cooling, and the 2.5 GHz chips in Power Macs reach 90c.

Actually the G5 also has throttling technology in it as well, not because its an embedded chip but because its based off a server chip and runs much closer to Prescott. Saves energy, but used mostly to handle noise in REV A models. When your using a large 600W PSU, and your plugged into the wall I'm not sure how important energy saving is.

as far as noise levels go, i couldn't hear myself SCREAM at macworld given the local ambient levels, let alone hear the mini. HOWEVER, i was able to check the output vent on the back of the unit and found that it is moving very, very little air through the case. i'm predicting the the low air flow will translate into low noise levels. the bottom of the case is on giant 6"-inch square rubber foot, so that will probably result in very little vibration transmitted to the desk or shelf it sits on. air intake is on the bottom and vent is out the rear, so there's not likely to be sound reflecting off the surface it sits on. the aluminum chassis is solidly thick around all the side so this should also deaden some sound; it 'clunks' when tapped rather than 'tings'.

and it's TINY. for folks like me that want both silence AND small form factor, and aren't limited by the mac hardware and software (fewer modding and gaming options) then this is a little dream machine.

end of facts; begin editorial--

HOWEVER, it's not for everyone. just as i can get a little via epia system that is tiny and silent, i'm not ever going to buy one. why? because it won't do two of the things that i want it to do: play games, and run my cartography software. the mac mini won't do those two things either, and so i won't be buying one, even though i'm a mac fan (i've had mac laptops for almost a decade now).

my cartography software is pc-only (esri's arcgis package) and so for my quiet mini system i'm waiting for a shuttle running the new alviso pentium M -- even a 533 DFi PM board in an antec aria is too large for me. if my cartography software supported macosX, i'd consider a mini, but even so it wouldn't kick enough ass for me to use it as my main work machine. the mini is more of an alternative to a lower-end dell or compaq; and frankly i'd rather get my granny a mac mini than any pc, the mini's got buying points in it's favor at the end-looser level (sorry, granny).

i look at the pc (mac and windows) market like this: if you game, or mod, or have special pc-only software or hardware needs, then you won't even need to evaluate the mac as an option. but for the average user the mac v. pc debate is pretty meaningless; there's pros and cons to both platforms.

for me, i have and love (ad sometime hate) both systems. i prefer a macosx laptop for my 'personal' machine: email, surfing, address managment, connecting in cafés, mp3 management and sharing, photos, style, size, battery-life, etc. i prefer my pc desktop tower (soon to be an sff) for gaming, work, case options, and cheap upgrades and mods. i hate that macs are so expensive that i always have a slow one, and that they never get good games when they come out, and i can never find them pirated for mac; i hate the viral hell, hardware issues, and poorly-layed-out os of my windows box, and that it is dominated by microsoft.

Tibors wrote: Have you ever seen a Dell, Compaq or other "big brand" computer that came standard with a Seagate Barracuda IV or Samsung Spinpoint?

Yep, at least 1 HP, 1 IBM & 1 Transtec (ok, no that "big"), but I don't open "brand" PC that much.
The HP had in fact one of the single platter 'cuda IV, with a ducted P3 to the single PSU fan (92mm), I also tried it at home and it was quiet (relative notion, for me = not silent but not unbearable noie either). When you're at work late (sorry for you), you can shut 19 out of the 20 and see what noise they make.
For the rest, sure you are right about those little details, altough I didn't saw that many recently, and I usually don't recommend buying big brands ... except when you want a "complete" product (also valid for servers or laptops).

burckab> thanks for the story, but if you could look at the specs and tell us if we picked the wrong.

I also wonder what HDD it will be, as Toshiba is their partner for ipods and given this SPCR review, it'll be like a 'cuda IV or quieter if other brand (see other reviews).

Last edited by dago on Fri Jan 14, 2005 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

bigred wrote:My favourite thing about mac-heads is that they don't realise almost every style of PC apple releases has already been done in the IBM-PC market, usually years before.

Examples please?

Also as far as it not supporting Core Image, its apparently intentional. This is their bargan basement PC that was released to finally take care of the sub $500 segment. Just like economy PC's in the IBM-PC realm, the low end systems don't take advantage of all the latest hardware or software by design.

If you read the actual Apple dev site you can see that Core Image/Core Video have now been merged. You can also see that the list of video cards supporting Core has been temporarily removed, and you will also find several articles that explain that if a GPU cannot natively support Core Image/Video technologies they will be implemented at the CPU level SO THERE IS NO COMPATABILITY ISSUE! Apple has recently acknowledged a G5 PowerBook is still a ways off and that the G4 wold likely still be around for a while and that future developement has been adjusted to compensate for this.

bob670 wrote:If you read the actual Apple dev site you can see that Core Image/Core Video have now been merged. You can also see that the list of video cards supporting Core has been temporarily removed, and you will also find several articles that explain that if a GPU cannot natively support Core Image/Video technologies they will be implemented at the CPU level SO THERE IS NO COMPATABILITY ISSUE! Apple has recently acknowledged a G5 PowerBook is still a ways off and that the G4 wold likely still be around for a while and that future developement has been adjusted to compensate for this.

Not to fan the flames but I'd call having the CPU do something that is supposed to be handled by the GPU a compability issue.
It's like saying: "I can still play Unreal in software mode so I have no problem with my graphic card not supporting D3D or OpenGL"

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